


Burn Me Once

by Mnemosyne_Elegy



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Exposure therapy, Free verse included at no extra charge, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Overcoming Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-01-26 14:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21375520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosyne_Elegy/pseuds/Mnemosyne_Elegy
Summary: Natsu overdoes it as usual, not realizing that Gray is in the line of fire until it's too late. Wendy has long since healed the burns from Gray's body, but Natsu can still hear the screaming in his head. It doesn't take long to realize that the trauma is more than skin-deep, even if Gray acts like it disappeared along with the burns. Some scars take longer to heal than others.
Relationships: Natsu Dragneel & Gray Fullbuster
Comments: 25
Kudos: 49





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I was like, "Huh, that would be a fun little one-shot idea." Then it was like, "Huh, 18k words is awfully long for a one-shot, but we're gonna roll with it." Then I started editing and was like, "Oh, hell no. Let's split this baby up." Except that I ran into problems while trying to do that because of how it was structured, so I had to play around with it a bunch and now it's a mess of like five parts lol On the bright side, it might be more manageable to read and edit? Sorry X)

* * *

**Part 1**

* * *

The house stood on the outskirts of town, set a little ways apart from the bustling neighborhoods dotted about the city's periphery. The city had been booming over the past few years, due in no small part to the economic success of nearby Magnolia and the resulting overflow of benefits to the surrounding area, and rapid expansion was taking over not only the interior but also the outer fringes.

This was not one of those areas that had so benefited from such growth. While neighborhoods sprang up and expanded all around, only a few abandoned, ramshackle hovels stood here.

The house in question was as nondescript as they came, with what appeared to be about a decade's worth of wear and tear as the cherry on top. It was of a medium size and made of rough-hewn wooden boards. The glass was broken out of the windows, the eaves sagged, the wooden steps were rotted and splintered, and the lawn was overgrown with weeds and waist-high grass and a few scraggly trees. It should be condemned. Why bother keeping around a firetrap if no one had lived there for years?

"You're saying that a highly organized secret criminal organization is using _this _as its hideout?" Natsu asked skeptically as he eyed the derelict fossil of a house from behind the cover of some overrun shrubbery on the edge of the lot. The bushes practically made their own messy little forest for the team to hide behind.

"Yes." Erza's eyes gleamed with satisfaction at having finally sniffed out their quarry.

"Are you _sure_?"

"Yes."

"Because you were wrong the last two times."

She scowled. "I'm confident this time. All of the evidence points here."

"It sure doesn't look like _anyone_ is living here, much less a highly organized secret criminal organization."

"Maybe that's the point?" Lucy suggested, playing peacekeeper. "If it looks like it's abandoned, then people might not look for them there. Something that nondescript is the perfect hiding spot."

"Still, I'd have picked somewhere with air conditioning and running water," Gray said. He peeked around the side of the overgrown hedgerow to give the house a critical once-over before ducking back behind the foliage.

"Oh, stop being ridiculous," Erza snapped. "Let's just get this taken care of so that we can get the Council off our backs."

Her eyes were practically giving off sparks now. Probably she didn't appreciate being reminded that their detective work had already led them astray twice. First to a cave system in a nearby mountain range that was conspicuously empty of everything but a grumpy wyvern that took offense to having its nest disturbed and chased them all the way back down. And second, most humiliatingly, to a house in east Hargeon that they quickly discovered belonged to an upstanding and law-abiding family of unassuming citizens who were horrified when a group of crazy mages broke in through their front door and began wrecking their house with all sorts of magic. Mostly fire, to be fair, because Natsu had considerably less self-control than the rest of his team and believed in fighting first and asking questions later. But, to be _more _fair, Erza was the one who had declared with absolute certainty that the insurgents they were hunting had made their hideout in each of those places. Of course Natsu had gone in swinging.

"Since when do we care about the Council?" Natsu complained.

"We still have to answer to them," Lucy said.

"We don't," said Gray, "but this way we can throw this in their faces next time they start whining about us destroying something."

Natsu, having been on the receiving end of the Council's whining on that count many times before, perked up. "Do you really think it'll stop them from bothering us about stupid stuff?"

"No. You really believe in miracles? But at least we'll have something to whine back about."

"Okay, _enough_." Erza braced her hands on her hips and glared down the boys. "This could be a serious issue. The Council thinks these guys have stolen some important secret documents, which could spell trouble. Alright?"

Natsu grinned. "Do you think they could actually overthrow the Council for us?"

Erza covered her face with her hand and took a series of deep, calming breaths. "Natsu, I need you to be quiet. Okay, here's the plan."

Natsu tuned her out now that he realized it was becoming dangerous to keep making a nuisance of himself. And since he had no interest in making _plans_, he had no reason to pay attention. His idea of a plan was to run in and beat everyone up. Anything more than that was just overcomplicating things.

He grinned to himself, already fantasizing about beating a bunch of people's skulls in. Maybe there would even be someone in there worth fighting!

"–atsu? Hey! Natsu."

"Huh?" He shook himself out of his reverie and blinked at Erza. "What?"

"Did you listen to anything I just said?"

"…Maybe?"

"That means no," Gray translated.

Erza sighed. "Look, just remember to chase everyone out of the house before you get caught up in fighting them."

"Why?" Natsu asked. That seemed like an unnecessary complication.

"Because the Council wants those documents back, so we can't risk having them destroyed or giving any of these guys a chance to grab them and run. So sweep the house, subdue everyone, grab the plans, and give everything to the Council to deal with."

Natsu raised his hand. Erza eyed him suspiciously and made an impatient motion with her hand.

"Can I just set the house on fire?" he asked. "_That _will get them all running out here."

"Did you listen to _anything _I just said? The Council wants those documents back. If we burn the place down, those papers are gone. Just _do what I said _and don't improvise your own half-baked plans."

Natsu huffed out a breath but nodded, not wanting to antagonize Erza even more. He didn't care about something as boring as _papers_. Anyway, if the Council was dumb enough to lose their own stuff, they should take care of it instead of shoving the mission at the very guild they spent so much time harassing.

"Natsu doesn't believe in listening," Gray said, straight-faced.

Erza shot him a look but chose not to feed the flames by acknowledging the comment. "Alright, let's go. Lure some of these guys outside and start taking them out, and I'll do a more thorough sweep to make sure everyone is out."

"Aye sir!" Happy chirped.

"Got it," Lucy and Gray chorused.

"…Natsu?" Erza asked.

"Huh?"

"Got it?"

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Erza's lips tightened, but she only nodded and slipped around the hedges to sneak up on the house through the tall grass. The others followed, with Natsu trailing along behind.

"Gray, Lucy, go around the back," Erza said in a low voice as she crept up the rickety steps to the front door.

The aforementioned mages nodded and disappeared around the side of the shack. Natsu shifted about impatiently as Erza waited to give the others a chance to get in position. The porch creaked and groaned under his feet, and Erza glared until he fell still. Finally, she nodded and got to work.

The door was weathered but held firm when Erza tried prying it open, and she had to kick it in with a couple well-aimed blows. On first inspection, the house was empty. It was a bit dusty and the décor was wildly outdated, but it looked cozy enough. Maybe not as rundown as it should be if it had been abandoned for years.

Then a man stuck his head out from one of the rooms farther down the hall, and his eyes widened at the sight of the intruders. "Hey!"

Suddenly, the place was abuzz with activity as nearly a dozen men and women poured out of the rooms lining the halls. Natsu grinned. This was more his speed. Leaving Erza to deal with the stragglers, Natsu began slinging fire around and herding the rabble back out of the house.

Some of them didn't seem to have any magic at all, while others fought back. Some sort of weird energy bolt went whizzing past his ear and a tall, beefy man lunged at him, and Natsu smirked as he fired right back.

He knocked the beefy guy out with a flaming fist to the face and whirled around to flatten a mousy girl whose only defense was a rather pathetic jet of water.

"Is there anyone _interesting _to fight?" he asked.

"Try me," growled a lanky, brown-eyed man with an unruly fringe of tousled black hair sweeping across his forehead dramatically.

Magic—a huge maelstrom of magic—began building in the air, and Natsu bounced on his heels in anticipation.

"Ooh, what kind of magic do you have, then? Feels like you're pretty powerful."

The man didn't respond, too focused on setting up his powerful spell. The ground beneath their feet trembled a little in anticipation, a low rumble that promised power but was building up to it awfully slowly.

Natsu blinked at him for a few seconds and then got bored. Leaping forward, he punched the man in the face and shook out his throbbing hand. The obscene amount of magic building up in the air vanished as the guy fell back to the ground with a dazed expression.

"I'm sure you're really badass and all," Natsu said in a conciliatory tone, "but you might want to come up with spells that don't take so long to cast."

"Natsu, stop playing around," Happy whined, fluttering his wings in a show of annoyance. "I'm hungry. Let's get this over with."

"Is it too much to ask to find someone worth fighting?"

"Don't be silly. That's what you have Gray for."

As true as that was, Natsu had no intention of openly admitting that Gray was—_nearly_—as badass as he was. Instead, he scowled and sent a rotund man rolling through the grass.

Lucy came dashing out the front door with three men chasing after her and took a flying leap off the porch to avoid the rotten steps entirely.

"Get back here!" one of her pursuers yelled.

Lucy ran out a few more paces and spun around, eyes hardening with determination as she whipped out her ring of keys. Natsu smirked. Those guys were stupid to think they had the upper hand, as if she was actually running away. Lucy could be pretty badass too.

Natsu knocked around a few more small fry until Erza came storming out of the house, herding a handful of people in front of her. Well, it looked like the house was clear, anyway. Now all they had to do was take out the half-dozen opponents still standing and find whatever dumb plans the Council had been stupid enough to lose.

He locked on to a scrawny, red-haired boy and grinned as he lunged forward. The boy squeaked and scrambled backwards as fast as his little stick legs could carry him. Obviously, many of these people were better suited to espionage and planning underground revolts than actually fighting.

Just as Natsu was about to knock the little nerdy guy out, a gust of wind slammed his attack aside and a lithe, blonde-haired girl with blue eyes like chips of ice stepped between the two.

"Get out of here, Allen," she said without looking back, her voice throaty and low as she glared Natsu down.

"But–"

"If you can grab the documents on the way, all the better."

The kid's face paled considerably as he glanced back at the house, where Erza was guarding the door like a marauding sphinx as she whirled her swords through the air. Natsu had the feeling that this guy wasn't brave or stupid enough to try getting through that mess, but he obediently scurried away.

Natsu smirked as Aries caught him up in a giant ball of pink fluff.

The girl glanced back and sighed. "That boy," she muttered, shaking her head.

"At least you tried?" Natsu offered.

She turned back on him, eyes narrowing to slits, and slashed her hand through the air. An accompanying gale of wind buffeted Natsu back. "You and your team would be wise to leave us alone."

"Sorry, the Council wants you taken care of." Natsu whipped some fire back, which she deflected with wind. "But hey, you have super-secret documents and stuff on them, right? Give them to us. We kind of have to turn you in, but if you give us the documents then we can take over the Council ourselves and–"

"_Natsu!_" Lucy barked as she sprinted past to chase down a girl trying to make a run for it. "We aren't overthrowing the Council! _Focus!_"

Natsu scowled. "Always ruining my fun."

"…I question the Council's choice of champions," the wind girl said dryly.

They slung wind and fire back and forth, and soon Natsu was grinning in exhilaration. Now, _this _was more like it. She even managed to clip him with a couple attacks that sliced cleanly through his skin like knives, and was adept at using well-timed spells to deflect his flames.

This last point quickly turned from exhilarating to highly annoying. Natsu growled in frustration as yet another ball of flame was sent spiraling to the side by a powerful draft instead of hitting its intended target. Geez, what would it take to land a hit on this girl?

"Come on, Natsu," Happy said, dodging around the returning gust of wind. "You already fought a wind mage, right? You were having a hard time hitting him too, but you figured it out. Just do that!"

"Huh? Oh, that guy with Lullaby? What was his name again? Did it start with an 'r'?"

"…I don't think so."

"Oh, 't'? Or 'l'? 'L'–something?"

"What about 'e'?" Happy suggested.

Natsu paused to consider that, and almost got his nose sliced off by a cutting blast of wind for his trouble. "Nah, I don't think so."

"Oh, for the love of–! _Erigor! _It's _Erigor_."

"Hm? Not ringing any bells."

"I don't even– Forget it. Just please take her out. Surely you learned something from last time."

Natsu wasn't sure that he had really learned anything from last time. He seemed to vaguely recall something about Happy pissing him off, and then he'd suddenly broken through the guy's wind wall thing. That didn't necessarily mean he knew _how _he'd done it.

But that was okay. He wasn't going to be outdone by a little wind magic, and he had his own ways to fix that. Mainly by throwing more and more powerful flames at it until it cracked. That was how he handled most problems, actually.

So that was what he did, much to Happy's despair. And yet nothing broke through, much to Natsu's mounting frustration. And that smarmy little girl was _laughing _at him! Amusement gleamed in her eyes as she slouched there and deflected attack after attack with a simple flick of her wrist.

"I was expecting the infamous Salamander to be a little more powerful than this," she said. "I'm actually a little disappointed."

That was _it_. Rage flared in Natsu's belly and he sucked in a huge lungful of air. He'd _show _this girl.

Heat seared the air, and her eyes widened at the massive fireball that his roar sent flying towards her. She threw up a hasty wall of swirling wind and sent it hurtling off to the side—_again!_

Natsu wanted to scream in frustration. Why couldn't he touch her?

"Oh, come on," he groaned. "This sucks."

The girl rolled her eyes. "You aren't really one for strategizing, are–?"

"Natsu!" Lucy wailed. "What have you done?"

"Huh?" He turned and followed her gaze back to the decrepit hovel…that was now on fire. The blast from the roar had been deflected into the front of the house, leaving a gaping hole that was now dancing with flames as the old, rotted wood went up like kindling. "Oops?"

The wind girl was also horrified. "You stupid boy! What do you think you're doing, burning down our headquarters?"

"Hey, I was only trying to burn _you_. _You're _the one who sent it into your hut."

"It's not a _hut_, you–"

"I _told _you not to burn the place down!" Erza roared as she leaped away from the blazing inferno behind her.

"Sorry?" Natsu shrugged. "We made sure to herd everyone out already, so what does it really matter? No one's inside anyway."

"The _documents_, you fool. We were supposed to retrieve the _documents_!"

"Speaking of which," Lucy said in a very small voice, "did Gray make it out yet?"

"Huh?" Natsu blinked at her blankly. "Gray? What does he have to do with anything?"

"You really didn't listen to anything I said, did you?" Erza growled. "Gray was searching for the documents while we were fighting these guys. Do you see him anywhere? He's not still inside, is he?"

Come to think of it, Natsu _hadn't _actually seen Gray. Looking around, he failed to spot the ice block anywhere. A faint worm of unease wriggled in his stomach. Well, even if Gray _was _still inside, he was tough and had magic to protect himself until he got out. He'd be fine.

A hoarse cry split the air, clearly audible over the snapping of wood and fire.

"Oh no," Lucy whispered. "Do you think he–?"

"He's fine," Natsu said gruffly, starting forward. "Ice magic and stuff. But I'll go get him just in case."

"You aren't going anywhere," the wind girl growled, turning on him with blazing eyes.

Another agonized wail tore through the air, tying Natsu's insides into knots, and he started running.

* * *

Natsu isn't in the mood for the wind girl's  
Games  
Anymore.  
He doesn't care about  
Defeating her  
Showing off  
Winning.  
When she sends a whirlwind spinning his way  
He dodges around her attack  
Without slowing  
And _runs_.

"Go!"  
Erza yells after him.  
"I'll take care of her."

He doesn't look back.  
He flies up the creaky wooden steps  
And charges back through the  
Open doorway.

The air is sweltering and  
Shimmers with heat  
But he doesn't mind.  
This is fire  
_His _fire  
And it won't burn him.

Gray  
On the other hand…

Gray has ice magic  
Is strong  
Can hold his own.  
He should be fine.  
_Is_ fine.

Natsu is just  
Double-checking  
So that the  
Girls  
Stop freaking out.

Flames are already  
Licking at the walls in the entrance hall  
Spreading from the  
Point of impact  
Somewhere on the left side of the house.  
They eat up the  
Dead, dried wood  
Hungrily  
And search for  
Something tastier  
To whet their appetite.  
Firetrap indeed.

He has no idea where Gray is  
But assumes it's somewhere to the left  
Where the inferno is already  
Raging  
Full force.  
He dashes into the flames.

He sees  
Thick clouds of smoke  
Flames shining bright and hot  
Furniture burning and blackening to ash.

What he doesn't see is  
Gray.

And the screaming starts again.


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

* * *

A loud creaking just audible over the roar of the fire was the only warning Natsu had before a heavy wooden beam supporting the shoddy structure's outer wall toppled over right in front of him. He leaped back to avoid getting his head smashed in and then hopped over the burning beam to hurry on his way and duck through the nearest doorway. Geez, forget firetrap. This place was a deathtrap.

And then the screaming started up again, hoarse and agonized. Natsu bit out a curse, lost under the crackling of the flames, and coughed on a lungful of acrid smoke as he dodged around debris and raced in the direction of the wailing.

_Come on, ice block. Why aren't you just freezing your way out?_

He ran through three different rooms before spotting a half-circle of frozen flames through the billowing curtains of thick gray smoke. What had once been frozen flames, anyway. Now the ice had melted down to nubs, glistening with moisture as the flames ate away at it ruthlessly. For Gray, it would be pathetic magic.

Natsu's heart dropped into his stomach as he realized that something was actually, seriously wrong.

Gray screamed again, but it was raspy and weaker than before. Natsu lunged forward and found his friend collapsed across the floor on his back, a burning wooden beam like a giant flaming matchstick pinning him across his chest and another crushing one arm down. His shirt—oh, _why _hadn't he unconsciously stripped it off already?—was on fire, melting away beneath the flames and searing the skin along with it, and Gray thrashed about weakly and wailed.

"Holy shit," Natsu breathed.

He lunged forward and grabbed the heavy, splintered beam trapping Gray's chest, grunting with effort as he struggled with it and then heaved it off him. He tore apart what little remained of the burning shirt and tossed it aside, trying not to stare at the ugly burns and blackened skin stretched across Gray's chest. Shoving the other beam off Gray's arm, Natsu crouched over his friend.

"Gray? Hey, can you hear me?"

Gray's eyes slid open, but they were glazed and dull with pain and showed little sign of recognition. Blood dripped from the side of his head in bright trickles of crimson, where one of the falling beams must have clipped him on the way down.

Something almost like understanding flickered in his eyes, although it was quickly swallowed by the pain again. He clamped his mouth shut to put an end to that godawful wailing. Natsu shook his head to banish the last jangling notes of the screams, but they still chewed on the ends of his fraying nerves.

"Shit, Gray," Natsu mumbled. "Hang on, I'm going to get you out of here."

Another loud crash reverberated through the burning building, and he cursed. This place was going to collapse on them at any second. He slipped his arms beneath Gray and hefted him up with a grunt, and the ice mage made a strangled moan of pain that was muffled behind his gritted teeth as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Sorry, but we gotta go."

Natsu staggered to his feet, spun back around, and ran for the door. He hunched his body protectively around his injured friend and stumbled awkwardly under his weight. Gray's breath shuddered and hitched against Natsu's chest, but he didn't have time to worry about anything but not dropping his heavy burden and finding a way out of this hellhole.

He rushed for the front entrance first, before realizing that a large section of the house had collapsed and blocked their way. He backed away from the licking flames and piles of debris with a string of muttered curses and changed course. In the next room, he spotted the gaping hole in the side of the building with wooden supports poking out every which way like jagged teeth. _Burning _jagged teeth, given that the whole area was an inferno.

This must have been ground zero, where his roar had first slammed into the house, and now it was going to be their escape route. Natsu put his head down and charged through the wall of flame, reaching out with his magic to shove the worst of the fire away and doing his best to shield Gray's limp body with his. One of the wooden beams scraped along his leg as he leapt through the hole, but he just gritted his teeth and staggered forward until they were a safe distance away from the conflagration.

"Oh my gosh!" Lucy wailed as she ran over. "Gray!"

Natsu wheezed out a cough and choked down bile. Gray looked even worse now that Natsu had the time to really look. Most of the damage had been concentrated on his chest and arms, which were mottled black and angry red and barely recognizable beneath the burns. The smell of singed skin made Natsu's stomach turn. He didn't think he would ever look at meat the same way again.

"Wow, you'll even take out your own teammates?" the wind girl sneered from where she'd been bound up in a pile on the lawn. "Some hero you are."

"Shut up!" Natsu snarled.

Gray's eyes fluttered open halfway and he stared up vacantly as the team gathered around.

"Okay, Gray," Erza said, her face sheet-white, "we're going to get you back to Wendy and you'll be fine. You're going to be fine."

His eyes stayed empty, but then a feverish light entered them and he slowly, painfully lifted his arm and held out a sheaf of papers with charred edges to Erza. Natsu hadn't even realized he'd been holding them, distracted as he was, but Gray had a death grip on them, holding them so tightly that his fingers were trembling.

"What is…?" Erza pried the singed pages from his fingers and swept her gaze over them. Her face crumpled. "I don't care about the documents anymore."

Gray let his breath out in a wheezy sigh and went slack, his eyes sliding shut.

"Gray?" Happy poked at Gray's face with one paw, but the ice mage didn't stir.

"Unconscious," Erza mumbled, her hands tightening around the papers. "The pain probably knocked him out, finally. Maybe it's a blessing."

"Or smoke inhalation." Lucy swallowed hard and shook her head as if to focus on the present or banish dark thoughts.

"He got hit on the head," Natsu added in a mumble, still dazed as the world wavered surreally around him. "Might have a concussion or something."

"He looks really bad," Happy said in a small voice.

Something in his voice—maybe something about all their voices and faces and panic—snapped Erza out of her own horror and back into leader mode.

"Right," she said calmly, "I'll stay here to clean up this mess and get everything to the Council. The rest of you can head back to the guild. Have Wendy heal Gray as soon as possible."

Lucy swallowed again and rallied. "Okay," she mumbled. She touched Natsu on the arm and he started out of his own numb daze.

Erza eyed Natsu and opened her mouth. For one terrifying moment he thought she was going to say that she had warned him not to overdo things and he needed to be more careful because this was how people got hurt, but she swallowed down her words.

"It'll be okay, Natsu," she said gently. "We aren't far from the guild. Wendy can heal him and he'll be fine."

Natsu nodded and turned away, cradling Gray closer as he took off at a hobbling trot. "Let's go."

Lucy and Happy hurried after him, leaving Erza to clean up the mess they'd left behind. There was still a gash sluggishly seeping blood down his leg and Gray was a heavy deadweight in his arms, but Natsu kept up the quick pace and refused to slow even when it felt like a knife was being driven into his leg with each step. Gray was hurt—_Natsu _had hurt Gray—and they needed to fix it.

The next train to Magnolia didn't depart for another twenty minutes, so they hunted down a place where they could rent a carriage. Natsu deposited Gray in the backseat and hopped up onto the box seat to grab the reins.

"Do you need me to…?" Lucy trailed off, fearful eyes darting between Natsu and Gray.

"Get in," Natsu said shortly.

Lucy slid inside the carriage and Happy perched up beside Natsu, who barely waited for the door to click shut before he set the horses trotting. This quick clip only lasted until they broke free of the city proper, and then he turned them loose in a breakneck gallop.

His stomach roiled with nausea—nausea that had as much to do with the smell of charcoal and charred skin permeating the air and coating his tongue as with normal motion sickness, he suspected—but he set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and refused to let himself give in to his travel maladies. This was too important. Phantom screams still bounced around his skull until he wanted to shove cotton balls into his ears.

"Should we really be going so fast when Gray is…like this?" Lucy asked timidly. As if to prove her point, the carriage rolled over a rock, bounced into the air, and slammed back to the ground with a jolt.

"He's unconscious, isn't he?" Natsu said tersely. "Better to get him back as soon as possible."

He zoomed past a slower-moving carriage and stared straight ahead to where the dirt path went up a rolling hill and met the horizon. He was looking for any sign of Magnolia, and zeroed in on this goal single-mindedly to keep the worst of his motion sickness at bay.

"You know," Lucy said, her voice soft enough to almost be lost under the clatter of the wheels, "I was always kind of afraid that something like this would happen."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Natsu demanded.

"Just… With how you and Gray are always fighting, I was always worried that something would go too far eventually. Either you'd burn him really badly or he'd really hurt you with his ice. Like that time he broke your nose?"

Natsu wanted to laugh, but not because it was funny. Was she really comparing this to a broken nose?

"It's not the same," he bit out. "We know each other's limits, and we're careful not to use enough power to really hurt each other. I wasn't being careful because I didn't know he was there, and…"

Natsu had never thought of his magic as a bad thing before. He knew it could be destructive and theoretically knew the dangers of fire in general, but it wasn't like he had ever used it to really hurt a friend before. Enemies, maybe, but they gave as good as they got and he did what he had to. His magic was a powerful tool and he was proud of it.

But despite all the times he had seen it in action, he hadn't truly comprehended its savagery until he'd seen Gray writhing and screaming as it ate into him. He had seen the dark side of his magic—the dark side of _himself_—and it had shaken him to the core.

Happy snuggled closer. "Don't worry. We'll be back at the guild soon, and Wendy will fix everything."

"Everything will be good as new," Lucy added, snuffling in a way that let Natsu know she had been crying.

He hummed noncommittally. He sure hoped so.

They lapsed into silence, consumed by their own thoughts and worries, and only the clattering of hooves and wheels and ghostly memories of wailing filled in the gaps they left. The violent rocking and bouncing of the carriage made Natsu's stomach roil and heave, but he didn't slow down until they hit Magnolia's city limits. Even then it was grudgingly, and only because Lucy was insistent that he slow down before he ran over someone.

He yanked back on the reins and the horses skidded to a stop outside the guild, tossing their heads and whickering at the rough treatment.

"He's too heavy," Lucy said. "I can't carry him in. Can you–?"

"I got it." Natsu slid off the seat and had to lean back against the carriage and take a few deep breaths to shove back his nausea.

Then he shouldered past Lucy and retrieved Gray from the seat. His arms felt like jelly and he was afraid he might drop his friend, but he staggered for the guild and avoided looking down at the charred body in his arms.

Lucy rushed ahead and threw open the doors, already calling for Wendy. Everyone gathered around to see what the fuss was about.

Cana swore loudly. "What _happened_?"

"Uh…" Lucy wrung her hands together and darted a look at Natsu. "Well, there was a fire and–"

"I accidentally set a house on fire while he was still inside and it collapsed on him," Natsu said dully. "And one of his hands was trapped, so he couldn't use his magic properly."

Lucy and Happy shot him looks he couldn't quite read, but he only had eyes for Wendy as she rushed over.

"Natsu-san, can you bring Gray-san to the infirmary?" Her voice was calm, but her eyes were bright with worry as she assessed Gray's condition.

Natsu followed her to the infirmary without another word and laid Gray on one of the cots. Gray's face was deathly white and his eyes closed, and the ugly burns across his body made Natsu's stomach twist up again. He looked away.

"You can fix him, right?" Lucy asked. She hovered nearby, watching Wendy like a hawk, while the rest of the guild peeked into the room and talked in hushed voices.

"Of course," Wendy said. "Gray-san's injuries are severe, but I have enough magic to fix him up. Hm, a few broken ribs, snapped wrist, some internal bleeding, head injury, smoke inhalation, massive third-degree burns…"

Natsu's hands clenched into white-knuckled fists by his sides as the healer absently mumbled the list of injuries while she worked. All that because of a few stupid documents and an unsafe house.

And Natsu.

He found a bit of spare bandage in the cabinet and wrapped it around his calf halfheartedly before drifting away to lean against the back wall. He focused on the sharp throbbing of his injured leg to push the less savory thoughts out of his head.

Wendy stayed bent over Gray for a long time, picking apart his injuries and knitting them back together. Finally, she leaned back with a sigh and collapsed into a chair as she rubbed at her face wearily.

"That should be it." She dropped her hand and looked over at Natsu. "He's good as new. Just let him sleep it off, and he should be himself when he wakes up."

Natsu nodded, but the knot in his chest didn't ease even though relieved smiles broke out on everyone else's faces. He snuck a glance at Gray. Gray looked like he was just sleeping now, a little pale but otherwise unharmed, but Natsu imagined he could still see burns chewing up his skin. He turned away.

"I'll go return the carriage."

"Natsu?" Lucy asked. "Are you…?"

"Fine. Might as well take care of this while there's nothing better to do around here."

Natsu didn't want to be here with all these well-meaning people gathered around and Gray unconscious in the bed. He fixed his gaze on his feet and looked at no one as he slipped through the onlookers and trudged back out of the guild. He pulled himself up onto the carriage and took up the reins. He was more gentle with the horses this time, both in a vain attempt not to aggravate his motion sickness and because he wanted to make this outing take as long as possible.

Happy whizzed after him and plopped down beside him. "Natsu, are you okay? You're being weird."

"Fine," Natsu grunted.

"Gray will be okay. He already _is _okay, now that Wendy healed him."

"Mhm."

"He won't blame you. Probably. I mean, he'll know you didn't do it on purpose, and everything worked out in the end."

"Here." Natsu thrust the reins at Happy. "Can you take over? This motion sickness is killing me."

The little cat looked strange holding reins to control horses many times his size, but he took them despite his obvious discomfort.

Natsu leaned back and sank down into a nauseous daze. He felt hot and feverish despite the breeze tickling his skin, as if he was still on fire. He fell deeper and caught glimpses of blistered skin and snatches of screaming as he sank down, down, down.

The next thing he knew, Happy was prodding him and he jerked upright in a cold sweat.

"We're here," Happy said. His eyes were solemn as he peered at Natsu.

Shaking visions of fire and burning out of his head, Natsu nodded and jumped down.

They returned the carriage with no hassle and started back for Magnolia. Natsu wasn't feeling up to any more transportation—and would rather dither for as long as possible since he didn't want to face the guild—so they set off walking. It was a few miles, but Happy offered no complaints. He stayed pretty quiet for the first half of their journey, perhaps out of respect for Natsu's mood.

"You're being weird," he said finally. "It's not like you to get so upset about things that have been fixed and are in the past. I mean, it was bad, but it's going to be okay. What can I…? I don't know what to do."

"It'll be fine once he's up and about again," Natsu said. He summoned up a halfhearted smile and patted Happy on the head, while simultaneously resisting the urge to grimace and collapse in a heap. He might have underestimated how hard a trek would be with a leg that felt like it had broken glass crunching against bone at every step. "You're doing fine. You're a good friend, you know that?"

Happy gave him a tentative smile back and relaxed a little. At least until he noticed that Natsu was starting to really limp and saw the gash up his leg. He insisted on flying the dragon slayer the rest of the way to Magnolia, lecturing him the whole way.

"Not the guild," Natsu said as they entered the city. "Let's go home."

"Not the guild?" Happy repeated. His ears flattened. "But Wendy could heal your leg, and everyone will be worried if we don't go back."

"Wendy is already exhausted from healing Gray. I can patch it up at home. And anyway…I'd just rather go home right now."

He would not be dissuaded, so Happy reluctantly gave in. Natsu wrapped his leg in bandages and sprawled across the couch in a boneless heap. He was too exhausted to do much more than participate halfheartedly in Happy's chatter.

He was mostly counting down the hours until it was a socially appropriate time to go to sleep. It was already nearing evening, and he decided that making dinner would be a good distraction. They still had a couple fish and some odds and ends, and he set about hacking everything apart and shoving it on the stove while Happy complained about wasting perfectly good fish. The concoction quickly began smelling absolutely vile and looked even worse, so it was just as well that Natsu wasn't actually hungry while the scent of burning flesh was still lodged in his nostrils.

"I'd rather starve," Happy said with an overly dramatic sigh as he eyed the ruined fish.

"I'd like to see you do any better," Natsu grumbled.

"Yeah, well–"

A knock on the door drew Happy up short, and they both turned to look.

"Maybe someone from the guild decided to drop by," Natsu said.

"Probably."

He'd rather not deal with anyone else right now, but he knew from experience that it was better to just get it over with. Abandoning his ill-conceived dinner, he limped out of the kitchen and flung the door open.

His mouth was already opening to blurt out an explanation for his disappearance, but every muscle tensed and went rigid.

"Gray!" Happy said, shoving his head out the door around Natsu's arm. "You're awake already?"

"Sure am." Gray's voice was a little husky, and Natsu wondered if Wendy had fixed all the smoke inhalation after all. His hands were jammed into his pockets and he slouched comfortably, but his eyes were sharp and wary as they studied Natsu and Happy. "Nothing's wrong. Why would I keep sleeping?"

He had clearly stopped by his place first to clean up and get new clothes, but Natsu found himself running his gaze over every inch of his friend to make sure that everything really was fixed.

"I'm glad you're okay!" Happy said, launching himself at Gray and wrapping stubby paws around him. "I was so worried!"

"It's all good." Gray retrieved a hand from his pocket to hug Happy back. Over the little cat's head, he gave the silent dragon slayer a hard, unreadable look and then shoved past him into the house. "How rude, not even inviting me in. What are you doing sulking out here?"

Natsu turned and watched Gray stroll past and make a face at the messy state of the house. He opened his mouth, but the apology stuck in his throat until he wanted to gag on it.

"It was my fire," he blurted out instead. "I was fighting someone and overdid it and accidentally burned the house down."

Gray turned back and let Happy go. He raked a searching gaze over Natsu. "I know."

The others had already told him, then. Unless…

"How much do you remember?" Natsu asked, that sick feeling twisting his stomach around again.

A shadow passed over Gray's face and flickered in his dark eyes before disappearing as quickly as it had come. "Not much. Everything was hazy and I got hit over the head, so I was pretty out of it. I barely remember anything."

That, Natsu feared, was a lie. How much _did _Gray remember? Did he remember being trapped and helpless while the fire consumed him? Did he remember screaming until his throat was hoarse, thrashing around while the burning wood crushed him beneath its weight?

Could he still feel Natsu's fire eating him away to nothing, feel it melting his skin and tearing its claws into him until everything was agony?

Natsu hoped not, because his own memories were already bad enough.

Happy looked between Gray and Natsu nervously as they stared at each other.

Natsu's mouth opened. "I…"

_I'm sorry._

The words tasted like ash on his tongue, and he couldn't choke them out.

"Chill out, flame brain." Gray grinned, and all traces of the shadow hanging over him vanished all at once. "Everything's fine. I'm all better, and even managed to rescue those oh-so-important documents for the Council despite your best efforts to sabotage us. Everything worked out."

Natsu wanted to believe him. Maybe he was right. There was no point worrying about things that were already fixed, and Gray seemed fine.

"What _is _that smell?" Gray asked, turning away before Natsu could come up with anything to say. He strode over to the kitchen and peered at what had once been perfectly edible food before Natsu got his hands on it. "Holy shit, what did you do? No way is that edible. Come on, let's grab dinner at the guild. Everyone is worried that you ran off to hide, anyway. Might as well eat with them."

He spun on his heel and walked back outside, dragging Natsu and Happy behind him with the sheer force of his presence.

"Gray…"

Gray glanced over his shoulder and ran his gaze over Natsu's haggard features one more time before turning back and continuing on. "It's fine, ash for brains. It's like it never even happened at all."

* * *

Everything is normal.  
So normal  
That it's almost jarring.

The guild fusses over Gray a bit  
But he says he's fine and  
Smiles so big  
That it's impossible not to believe him.

There are  
No burns  
No scars  
No accusations  
No signs that anything is wrong  
No evidence that anything ever happened at all.

So they forget eventually  
And everything goes back to  
Normal.

Erza gives a speech about being  
Careful  
Vigilant  
Observant  
And never once looks at Natsu  
As if they don't all know that  
The warning is for him.

She never brings it up again  
And no one talks about  
The job  
The fire  
Natsu's mistake.

Gray is fine.  
Maybe he really doesn't remember  
The fire  
The burning  
The screaming  
Like Natsu does.

But Gray is  
**S**miling  
**C**arefree  
**A**nimated  
**R**elaxed  
**E**nergetic  
**D**auntless  
And Natsu thinks that  
Maybe it's okay to let go of his mistake now.

Sometimes he still dreams  
And wakes twisted up in sweat-soaked sheets  
With Happy hovering above him with worried eyes  
Asking what's wrong.  
But in the daytime  
It's easy to forget  
When everyone else has forgotten.

So he starts to move on  
And slowly it all begins to fade.  
He's fine  
Gray's fine  
Everything's fine  
And it's like nothing ever happened at all.

Gray shies away from the  
Fireplace  
On a job at an inn.  
"Are you alright?" Lucy asks.  
He smiles.  
"It's too  
Hot  
To have a  
Fire  
In here when it's not even winter."  
And that makes  
Perfect sense  
Even if the heat doesn't bother Natsu.

Macao shows off his  
Fire  
Tricks to impress his son  
And Romeo shows off his  
Fire  
Tricks that he learned from his teacher  
And Gray  
Leaves  
Because he forgot that he was in  
Desperate  
Need of groceries for tonight.

The team goes on jobs  
And Gray fights alongside  
Erza  
And Lucy  
And not Natsu  
But maybe that's just because he  
Somehow  
Ends up with the tasks that aren't near Natsu  
And is in the mood to fight with the girls instead.

So everything is  
**N**ormal  
**O**rdinary  
**T**ypical  
**OK**  
And Natsu wonders if something leaves  
No trace  
No evidence  
No consequences  
That means it's like it never even happened at all.


	3. Part 3

* * *

**Part 3**

* * *

"Say that again!" Natsu demanded. He scowled at Gray, his hands clenching into fists, and the rest of the guild instinctively backed away to avoid the coming fight.

Gray smirked and lifted an eyebrow. "I said, it must suck when you aren't the sharpest sword in the armory and–"

"That's it!" Natsu roared.

He lunged for Gray, whose smirk widened. Gray blocked the first punch with ease, but Natsu managed to knee him hard enough that he grunted in pain. Gray slammed a hand into Natsu's solar plexus and sent him staggering back with a wheeze, and the fight was on.

"Do you guys really have to fight over _everything_?" Lucy complained.

Natsu ignored her and launched himself back at Gray, and they traded blows with the ease of longtime sparring partners. Then Natsu hit Gray a little too hard and they both went tumbling to the floor and began rolling around and grappling on the ground.

"You…take that…back," Natsu grunted around his panting breaths as Gray elbowed him and he whacked the ice block right back. "I'm not…weak."

"Even dumber…than I thought." Gray wheezed out a laugh and shoved Natsu off of him. "I didn't say you were…weak. I said you were stupid. But…now that you said something…"

Natsu practically roared with frustration and scrambled to his feet. "I'll _show _you weak!"

He glowered down at Gray and lifted his fists. Fire sprang to his fingertips in a bright shower of sparks.

"Don't destroy the guild again!" Makarov yelled.

"I don't have the energy to break you up right now," Erza said coldly, "but if you're going to use magic, then take it outside."

Gray didn't jump up and whip out his magic as expected. He stared up at Natsu from the floor with wide eyes, every muscle rigid.

Not at Natsu—at the fire.

And for the first time Natsu could remember, Gray looked at him with fear in his eyes.

The fire died like it had been doused with a bucket of water. Gray's eyes slowly rose to meet Natsu's. The naked fear in them hurt.

But then Gray shook his head and pulled himself to his feet, a lazy smile back in place like nothing had happened. Just like he'd been doing every day since the accident.

"You know what," Natsu said in a voice that rang hollow in his ears, "Erza's right. We should take this outside."

He grabbed Gray's arm and dragged him out of the guild, through the ranks of unsuspecting friends who had somehow failed to see the signs the same way Natsu had. Gray made a wordless sound of protest in the back of his throat and tried to tug his arm away, but followed along with stumbling steps when Natsu only tightened his grip. Natsu tugged Gray around the corner of the building and out of the way of prying eyes before slowing to a stop and releasing him.

"Alright, flame brain." Gray grinned and fell into an offensive stance again. "Bring it on."

Natsu stared back solemnly. "I don't want to fight."

One of Gray's eyebrows cocked lazily. "Oh? Giving up already?"

"I just said that so you could have a minute to collect yourself."

Gray's smile faltered for a beat before sliding back into place. "I don't know what you're talking about. Everything's fine."

"I…" Once again, the apology stuck in Natsu's throat. "I wasn't thinking. I should have known better."

For a second it seemed like Gray would continue to deny it, but then he deflated and ran a hand over his face with a sigh. "It's fine, Natsu."

"I should have realized that it wasn't as okay as you pretended it was."

There had been signs, if Natsu had cared to notice. The way Gray avoided fighting beside him on jobs, flinching or escaping when fire entered the scene. Maybe, then, it had only flown under the radar because Natsu didn't _want _to notice. He wanted to believe that everything was alright, so he had let Gray pull off the deception unchallenged. And maybe that had been selfish.

"It _is _okay," Gray said confidently, straightening up again and squaring his shoulders. "You just caught me off guard, that's all. Come on, let's go back before they start asking questions."

He flashed Natsu a smile and turned to head back with a bounce in his step. Natsu watched him go, mouth twisting strangely. They had ignored the problem for a long time, and he couldn't just go back to pretending it wasn't there, like it hadn't ever happened at all.

"I'm sorry," he rasped, the words finally forcing themselves from between his jaws.

Gray stopped and stood still for a moment before turning back. His eyes were solemn now, his smile tired.

"It's okay, Natsu," he said again. "It was an accident. It's not like I'm upset with you or anything. Sometimes fire just gets under my skin a little. That's all. Come along, flame brain. It's not like you to worry about stupid stuff."

He headed off again, back around the corner and into the guild, and this time Natsu followed.

Everything immediately went back to normal. Natsu might as well have imagined the whole incident for how much Gray acknowledged it. Gray never brought it up again and he was just as cheerful and carefree as ever.

It would have been easy to brush it all off and consider it a done deal. After all, Natsu wasn't the kind of person to dwell on things and Gray clearly didn't want to deal with it anyway.

On the other hand, Gray had been acting perfectly fine for weeks before he slipped up. This was exactly what he'd been doing before, and his good cheer could be just as fake.

But Natsu was _not _going to forget there was a problem again. Even if it wasn't acknowledged, he would remember it was there.

He did what he could. When Macao and Romeo began trying to one-up each other with their fire tricks again, Natsu dragged Gray and Happy out on an impromptu fishing trip. When the team invaded Lucy's apartment one night and it turned into a sleepover when she brought out a candle to tell scary stories by, Natsu kept eating the flame despite her protests until she gave up and they talked in the dark.

Gray gave no sign that he knew what was going on, but it made Natsu feel a little better. Like he was actually _doing _something, however small.

This state of affairs continued for nearly two weeks before Gray marched into the guild late one morning, grabbed Natsu's wrist, and dragged him back outside.

"Hey," Natsu complained. "Happy and I were making this great plan to convince Lucy that–"

"I need your help," Gray said shortly. Now that he'd escaped the prying eyes of the guild, his expression had turned pinched and tight. His eyes were haunted, and the hand around Natsu's wrist trembled slightly.

"What?" Natsu sobered and searched his friend's face for clues. It wasn't like he could very well say no to Gray no matter what he might ask after that whole burning him alive thing. "With what?"

"It's this stupid fire thing. I can't take it anymore." Gray released Natsu's arm and stalked down the street with quick, almost nervous steps. Natsu hurried after and fell into step beside him. "It's driving me insane. I can't even cook anymore! I want to be able to look at my stove without having a panic attack."

"Since when do you cook?" Natsu asked. And then, perhaps more importantly, "Wait, are you really having panic attacks?"

"I don't, but I'd at least like to be able to heat up food other people made without thinking my stove is going to kill me," Gray said sourly. He dodged around a couple moving too slowly for his rather frenetic pace and turned the corner. "And you're going to help me. For one, you owe me. And two, you have fire, which will make it more convenient."

"Wait, you _want _fire? Where are we even going?"

"We're going to your place. More room and we'll be out of everyone's way. We're going to try exposure therapy."

"We're…_what_? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know, it's some fancy psychological thing to help you overcome fear or whatever. Like, you expose yourself to small things that don't scare you as much and then work your way up to the things you're _really _scared of. And, I dunno, eventually you're supposed to not be as scared anymore? Or at least know how to cope with it? Look, I'm not an expert, okay?"

"Uh…" Natsu had no idea what to do with this information. "But what am I supposed to do?"

"No idea. We'll figure it out."

Wonderful. Natsu, who was by no means a therapist, was going to give some kind of therapy that neither of them understood to Gray, who was by no means the ideal therapy patient. What could possibly go wrong?

"I want to help," Natsu said cautiously as they reached the house and Gray headed for the back, "but… Don't you think it might be better to find someone who actually knows what they're doing? Like a legit shrink or something?"

Gray glared at the ground. "I don't want a _shrink_. And you kind of owe me."

"Yeah, I'm not denying that, but–"

"Go over there."

Gray pointed to the other side of the grassy field out behind the house, and Natsu shrugged and traipsed over. Once Gray set his mind on something, that was that.

He stopped several yards away and squinted back at Gray. "Now what?"

"Uh…" Gray scratched his head. "Make a tiny flame, I guess?"

"Like this?" Natsu held up his palm and let fire flicker between his fingers.

Gray stiffened, his eyes zeroing in on the flame. "Maybe a little smaller."

Natsu wasn't really much good with _small _things, but he obediently quenched the flame to an even smaller, weaker little thing. "Like this?"

"O-okay." Gray swallowed and his eyes never left the fire. "Now… I don't know. Start walking towards me slowly, maybe?"

"How do I know when to stop?"

"I…don't know. Just…come on. We have to do _something_."

Natsu was confused by the whole thing. Okay, start off with something small and not as fear-inducing. Check. It was a tiny flame and he was starting pretty far away. Gray was eyeing the fire nervously and shifting from foot to foot, but he didn't look like he was about to have a panic attack or anything. First step down.

The next part seemed harder. Was Natsu supposed to stop before Gray got really uncomfortable? Was he supposed to keep going and push Gray out of his comfort zone? How much did it take to have a real effect, and how far could he go before he hurt more than helped?

He inched forward slowly, watching Gray for any sign that they ought to call this whole thing off. Gray's attention was fixed solely on the fire, as if it had taken over his world and was the only thing he could see. His jaw was clenched and he'd wrapped his arms tightly about himself, and Natsu could detect a slight tremble to his body.

If it wasn't so serious, Natsu might have laughed. It was utterly ridiculous to have such a strong reaction to a flame that was so tiny that it was virtually harmless and much too far away to even reach you. On the other hand, that made it even less amusing, that Gray was already having such a strong reaction when the threat was so minor.

"You okay?"

"Fine," Gray said shortly. "Keep going."

The closer Natsu got, the more pronounced Gray's raw nerves became. He was fidgeting restlessly and the trembling had intensified. Every time a light breeze blew past and set the tiny flame flickering outwards, he flinched. Something brittle lurked behind his eyes, and real fear was starting to creep in.

When Natsu was still five feet away, Gray took a step back before catching himself. Natsu stopped in his tracks and let the fire die.

"What are you doing?" Gray asked in a gravelly rasp, gaze still fixed on Natsu's empty hand. "Keep going."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"We haven't even _done _anything yet! Come on, I can do this."

"I know you _can_," Natsu said carefully, "but I don't think it's a good idea. You're already shaking like a leaf. We can try again tomorrow, if you want."

"No, I can–"

"Did something happen this morning?"

Gray had already been on edge when he'd first dragged Natsu out here, and it was possible that something had shaken him more than just the unhappiness about revealing a 'weakness' to his rival and asking for help. It could also explain why his reactions were blown so out of proportion to the actual threat of the flame. Either that or he really _was _that scared.

He had also ignored the question about panic attacks earlier, which Natsu did not find reassuring.

Pushing Gray out of his comfort zone was one thing, but doing it while he was already stretched thin and ready to snap was another.

Gray stiffened, his already tense muscles tightening further. He looked away, but not before Natsu saw his lips tremble and his eyes glaze over.

"This is so pathetic," he muttered rather than answering the question.

Normally, Natsu might agree. Not so much now. Whatever he had done to Gray with that fire had left scars far deeper than he'd expected.

"You remember more than you're letting on, don't you?" Natsu asked quietly.

Gray let out a shaky breath and turned away to start tromping back towards town. "You're right, maybe it's time to call it a day. I'll do better next time. I _will_. We can do it again but I'll be better, and I'll think of some other things we can try. This is going to work. It has to work."

"I don't think you're pathetic," Natsu mumbled as he followed after Gray. "It's brave of you to face it when it freaks you out so much. We can try again tomorrow. We can try every day, if you want. I'll help you until we figure it out. It can be our project."

This was his penance, his _apology_, for what had happened, and he would take it seriously. Anything to stop Gray from looking so scared and broken and totally unlike himself.

"Thanks, Natsu," Gray said quietly, but his shoulders were slumped and he looked more broken and defeated than anything.

Natsu chewed on his lip as they wove through the bustling streets in silence. He didn't know how to handle this. He was probably the _least _qualified person Gray could turn to right now.

Gray cleared his throat and scuffed the toe of his boot on the ground. "Can we…not tell the others about this?"

"Of course not."

And it wasn't like Natsu could just pass off the baton to someone more qualified, because Gray wasn't going to drop the façade for anyone else. When they went back to the guild, Gray would paste on that smile and act like everything was okay. He looked so defeated and miserable and ashamed now, but the second they reached the guild, he would be smiling like nothing had happened.

Natsu spotted an ice cream vendor set up on the corner in a little booth, and his face lit up. Now, _there _was an idea!

"Come on!" He grabbed Gray and dragged him over.

"What?" Gray grumbled.

"Two ice creams," Natsu told the vendor. He tilted his head at Gray and asked, "What do you want, ice block?"

Gray's lips twisted bitterly. "I don't want anything."

"Oh, please. You love ice cream. And anyway, we need something cool after all that fire, right?" When Gray's frown deepened and he didn't respond, Natsu turned back to the vendor with a shrug. "Well, since he won't tell me what he wants, why don't you just give us two cones with a scoop of every flavor?"

The vendor raised an eyebrow, but accepted the jewels and handed over two cones into which he scooped half a dozen flavors of ice cream. The towers of ice cream wobbled dangerously.

"You're going to drop that," Gray said. "You look ridiculous."

"Stop being such a spoilsport! Here." Natsu handed one cone to Gray, who eyed it dubiously but took it. Natsu took a big bite out of a scoop of chocolate, and Gray took a tentative lick of his. "Pretty good, huh?"

Gray looked over at Natsu with solemn eyes, but then a tiny little smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He looked away and tried to flatten it back out, but his lips kept twitching upwards and Natsu had already seen.

"Fifty jewels says you're going to drop half your ice cream before we hit the end of the street," he said.

"I'm not going to– Hey! Oh no!"

Natsu had the unfortunate habit of gesturing widely with his hands when he talked, and it came back to bite him when he moved his hand a little too emphatically and unbalanced the pile of ice cream. The top three scoops toppled to the ground with emphatic splats, leaving him staring down at the melting blobs in dismay.

"Told you so." Gray started laughing, and Natsu looked over in surprise. "You couldn't even– Oh man, it's so hot and this is going to melt all over me before I can eat it!"

"Serves you right for laughing at me."

But Gray kept laughing, and Natsu smiled.

Gray was going to wear a smile no matter what when they walked into the guild, and Natsu would rather it be a genuinely happy one.

* * *

Exposure therapy is hard.  
Partly because they don't know what they're doing  
But mostly it's right in the name:  
Exposure.

It exposes pieces of them that they  
Maybe don't want each other to see  
Anyone to see  
Themselves to see.

Gray is  
Frightened  
Ashamed  
Dispirited  
A little too broken.

Natsu is  
Guilt-ridden  
Troubled  
Restless  
A little too inadequate.

They pretend not to notice  
They never speak of it  
But they see more than they should  
Of both each other and themselves.

They are both trying to fix something.  
Natsu throws himself into the task wholeheartedly  
Because he wants to fix his mistake.  
And Gray.  
Gray wants to fix something too  
But he doesn't tell Natsu what that is.  
Maybe it's a broken piece of himself.

Natsu brainstorms new tasks and exercises  
Gray finds ways to face the parts that bother him the most  
And they learn to work together.

Some days Gray is too discouraged to want to try  
But once he gets started  
Nothing  
Will stop him and he will keep  
Going  
And going  
And going  
Until he breaks.

Gray  
Like his ice  
Will break  
Before he ever bends.

One day things go a little too far.  
The fire gets a little too big  
Or maybe a little too close  
Or maybe it was just a bad day to start with  
And Gray has the closest thing to a  
Panic attack  
That Natsu has ever seen.

It scares Natsu almost as much as it scares Gray.  
He learns what signs to watch out for  
And when it's time to  
Stop.

Gray pushes Natsu when he is too  
Guilty and worried to push the boundaries enough  
And Natsu forces Gray to stop when he is  
Letting his pride and stubbornness and determination  
Make him self-destruct.  
They balance each other.

They work almost every day.  
At first Happy is jealous  
But he knows about the  
Nightmares  
And says that it's good Natsu is working things out with Gray.  
The girls look askance  
But they think Gray and Natsu are  
Bonding  
So they smile and let them go.

If they make the connection to the  
Fire  
They don't say anything.

The boys _do _figure out that first exercise  
And do it better.  
And when it's  
Good enough  
They step it up  
A little at a time:  
The flame gets a little bigger  
Natsu brings it a little closer.

Then they reverse it and Gray  
Walks toward the fire himself  
Which is harder.  
It is one thing to stand firm while danger approaches  
And another to actively approach it himself.

They try different things and Gray  
Improves.  
He can handle the smaller flames Natsu holds  
With more nervousness than fear.  
He is more frightened of bigger flames  
Or fires that Natsu is not actively controlling.

The flames can only get  
So big  
So close  
Before it all falls apart  
But that's okay.  
It's progress.

Natsu builds small brushfires.  
He and Gray cook barely edible things  
Just to get Gray closer and closer to the flame in the stove.

Natsu gives Gray  
A box of matches.  
Gray is horrified  
Will have nothing to do with them  
But carries them in his pocket.

Eventually  
He picks up a new habit of striking  
Match after match  
And watching the fire burn the stick down  
Closer and closer  
To his fingers.

He brings the matches  
Everywhere  
And goes through  
Box after box  
As he  
Lights  
Watches  
Extinguishes  
Repeats.

What he so  
Feared  
Has become a  
Nervous habit  
Constant presence  
Security blanket  
As if he needs the  
Reassurance  
That he has some kind of  
Control.

Everyone notices the strange habit.  
Lucy finally asks one day  
As Gray strikes another match and watches it  
Burn down.

He smiles.  
"I'm going to learn  
Fire magic  
To outshine Natsu."  
Natsu rolls his eyes  
Erza raises an eyebrow  
Lucy frowns.  
"But that's not even magic!"

Gray strikes another match.  
"Baby steps."

He's right.  
Things aren't okay but  
They are fixing things  
Fixing each other  
One baby step at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to imagine these two cobbling together their own weird form of therapy was highly amusing to my nerdy psych side at one point.


	4. Part 4

* * *

**Part 4**

* * *

The smell of burning emanated from the kitchen. Happy must be cooking something. Natsu wondered what it was. It smelled strange, rather unpleasant and charred with an acrid note that wasn't normal, but he wasn't a picky eater.

He slid out of bed and padded across the house, his stomach rumbling. Stepping into the kitchen, he froze in place. There was something—a _person_?—standing in the middle of the floor with its back to him. It was twisted and black and broken, a charred skeleton with tatters of clothing and melted flesh hanging from its bones. Its blackened, skeletal fingers fumbled with the small box in its hands.

"What are you doing?" Natsu squeaked. The figure turned. "_Gray?_ Holy shit, what _happened_?"

The body was twisted and burned beyond recognition, but those dark, fathomless eyes were Gray's. The Gray-creature sighed with a breath like the whisper of a breeze whistling through the open holes along the jaw and struck another match. It watched mournfully as the flame burned down the stick and crept along its fingers and arms in flickering strands. The stench of burning flesh intensified and thickened the air until it was suffocating.

"Didn't you want me to play with fire?" it asked in a low, raspy voice. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Natsu shook his head mutely, his stomach turning over with a queasy lurch, and gagged. The Gray-creature struck another match, and Natsu watched in horror as the newest flames also nested in his hollowed body and crawled along every bone and tatter.

"Oh God," he moaned.

"Natsu? Are you okay?"

He whipped around as Gray peered around the doorframe and stepped into the kitchen. "Y-y-you–!"

Natsu looked back, but the skeletal Gray-creature was gone and the smell had vanished. A phantasm? A hallucination born of a guilty mind?

Gray tilted his head and studied Natsu curiously. He was unharmed, no burn or scratch marring his body.

"You're being weird," he said.

Relief crushed Natsu's chest like a vise, but then the house began shaking. Gray's head jerked up towards the ceiling, and fear lit his eyes as the house rumbled and started collapsing in on itself. Fire burst to life and consumed the structure in a dazzling show of flickering light and sweltering heat—Natsu's fire.

Gray disappeared under the falling debris and raging flames, and then the screaming started.

"No!" Natsu cried.

He tried pulling the fire back into himself, but it wouldn't listen to him. He grabbed the first beam he could get his hands on and tugged it off the pile burying Gray.

And Gray kept screaming and screaming and screaming and–

Natsu shot upright with a gasp, wide eyes searching the darkness. His panting breaths were loud in the stillness, and his pounding heartbeat raged wildly in his ears.

It took a long moment for the panic to die down as he placed where he was. They were on a team job, staying overnight at a hotel. He looked down and found Happy curled up on the pillow. The Exceed's breathing was even, his eyes closed in sleep.

At least Natsu hadn't woken him up screaming this time.

Damn, it had been a while since he'd had a nightmare that bad.

He squinted through the gloom at the bed on the other side of the room, searching out Gray's sleeping form. He found a pair of eyes staring back at him, gleaming faintly in the moonlight that streamed through the window.

"You alright?" Gray asked. He was sitting cross-legged with his back to the wall, very much awake.

"Yeah," Natsu rasped. "Just a nightmare. What are you doing up?" Gray's shadowy form shrugged, and a thought occurred to Natsu. "You had a nightmare too?"

Gray shrugged again, and Natsu slid out of bed after a moment of hesitation. Careful not to wake Happy, he tiptoed across the floor and crawled up to sit next to Gray.

Gray eyed him sidelong. "You're going to be tired tomorrow if you don't calm down and go back to sleep."

Natsu's too-fast breathing and heartbeat were still loud in his ears, but the darkness was starting to soothe him. Gray was alive and unharmed, and the horror of the nightmares faded with his even breathing to outlive the death and the darkness to smooth away the fire.

But that didn't mean Natsu was necessarily ready to venture back to the world of dreams just yet.

"Do you…want to talk about it?" He winced, regretting his approach. Of course Gray didn't want to talk about it. No more than Natsu himself really did.

"Not really," Gray sighed. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "They're just dreams."

Natsu searched his face unabashedly, keen eyes picking out every feature in the dim light. Gray's breathing and heartbeat were steady, so it was a fair guess that he'd already been awake for a while, at least long enough to calm himself after his nightmare. But there was still a haunted, hollow light to his eyes that said it wasn't over.

"You remember," Natsu said. It wasn't a question this time. "How much do you remember?"

"…Enough." Gray's eyes traced along the ceiling, but they were unseeing and distant. Every muscle in his face tightened.

"I need… I need to know," Natsu mumbled, looking away.

There was no doubt in his mind that Gray remembered too much for his own good, and that it was feeding into his fears and making their slapdash therapy more challenging. In order to help, Natsu needed to _understand_.

"Why?" asked Gray.

"I…" _I need to know exactly how badly I broke you._ "I think that understanding will help with this whole therapy thing."

There was a long pause, and then Gray's sigh wound through the silence. "_Could _you understand?"

"What?" Natsu started and stared at his friend, hurt clawing at his chest. "Of course I–"

"Fire doesn't mean the same thing to you that it means to the rest of us. To me." Gray met his gaze steadily, eyes gentle but solemn. "You can walk through flames unscathed. You can feel heat, but you don't really burn. Not except by specialized magics, and even those don't affect you as much as they should.

"It's your magic, Natsu. It's part of you. You _know _that fire can burn us, can do a lot of damage, but you don't really feel it yourself. You know what fire can do, you understand pain and fear, but… You have no reason to fear fire, it's your magic that you love, so can you really understand what it is to be on the other side?"

Natsu opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again. Gray…might not be entirely wrong. It was hard for Natsu to really comprehend what it would be like to live through that, especially when fire had always been a friend to him.

But that didn't mean he had no idea. He had seen Gray's fear, had glimpsed the scars beneath his skin. He wasn't sure he needed a firsthand account to understand the magnitude of the trauma, but he still wanted it anyway.

"I have nightmares too," he said, picking at the corner of the blanket he was sitting on. "About the fire. I can still hear you screaming sometimes. Maybe there are some things I won't be able to understand, but I saw something that day. I saw a dark side to my magic that I hadn't seen before. Maybe it's hard to feel it happening to me, but I saw it happening to you. So maybe I understand at least a little bit."

He frowned down at the blanket and hoped that the darkness was cloaking his expression. That had been painful to say. Yet another piece of himself exposed to Gray's scrutiny, as if they hadn't both already exposed themselves too much.

That was, if Gray hadn't realized it already. With so much left unsaid, it was hard to tell who knew what.

Gray said nothing for a long time, and Natsu wondered if this incident was going to be swept under the rug like it had never happened. As much as he didn't always want to face certain things, he was getting tired of pretending that they didn't exist.

"It's impossible to describe," Gray said finally. Natsu snuck a glance at him, but his head was lowered and dark hair curtained his face. "You can't breathe with the smoke filling your lungs and the debris crushing you. You're being eaten alive by the flames until every nerve in your body is wailing in agony. You're helpless to escape, don't even have a chance, and that's almost the worst part. It's pure agony. Probably a blessing I was woozy from hitting my head.

"But then you showed up." Gray coughed out a soft laugh. "You looked like a freaking angel. Some stupid, pink-haired angel. Some part of me knew that you would get me out."

He sighed and leaned back, his head thunking softly against the wall as he turned his eyes to the ceiling. "I knew it was your fire from the beginning. I've fought you, fought with you, enough times to know what it feels like. There's a dark side to _everything_, Natsu. Ice and cold can kill as surely as fire. It can also be beautiful, useful. Your magic isn't _bad _because of one mistake. It just _is_, and it's how you use it that gives it meaning. There's no reason not to trust it—it's just a warning that sometimes bad things can happen if you let it get out of control."

Natsu stared at him and swallowed hard, taken off guard by every admission and reassurance. "I…"

"By the way," Gray said, switching gears abruptly, "can we get a light in here? I'm tired of sitting in the dark."

"You're closer to the light switch," Natsu grumbled, clearing his throat when his voice came out a little too thick and gravelly.

Gray shot him a look. "You can't just _flip the light switch_," he said acidly. "Happy's still sleeping, idiot. Do you really want to wake him up?"

"But then– Wait, you want fire?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

Natsu searched Gray's face, not sure what to make of the request. Gray's lips were tight and his eyes hooded, but he just gestured impatiently with his hand.

Natsu summoned a small spark and held it in his palm before looking at his friend questioningly. Gray had tensed at the fire's appearance, but made a concerted effort to relax.

"Gonna have to be a _little _bigger than that," he said dryly.

Natsu let the spark grow but kept the little ball of fire contained in his hand. This was closer than Gray would normally allow, and Natsu was wary of making anything too big when they were already pushing it.

"Like this?"

"Good enough," Gray grunted. His face looked even more drawn and haunted with the firelight dancing across his features and licking at the dark.

"Do you have a lot of nightmares?" Natsu asked.

Gray shrugged and leaned over to grab something off the bedside table. "Enough," he said again, as close to an admission as he would get.

He straightened back up and the firelight illuminated the box of matches in his hand. Sliding it open, he pulled one out and held the head to the fire. Natsu watched curiously as he drew it away and held it firmly between two fingers, watching the little flame eat its way down the stick.

Burning matches was nothing new, of course, but Natsu found something a bit puzzling about it now. He shifted uncomfortably as the match burned lower and lower, the fire coming perilously close to Gray's fingers. Gray had become fond of testing his limits, but wouldn't he normally have shaken it out or frozen it solid by now?

The fire ate down the nub of the match, half a second away from grazing Gray's fingers, and Natsu lost his nerve. With a flick of his finger, he drew the fire back to himself where it joined the flame in his palm, leaving only a bit of charred wood in Gray's hand.

"What do you think you're _doing_?" he demanded.

Gray flipped his hand over and let the nub of wood roll down into his palm. "I don't trust the fire," he said, staring down at the blackened splinter and his unburned fingers. "But I trust you."

The flame wavered in Natsu's hand. Stupid Gray and his stupid demonstrations.

"It's not my job to save you from burning your fingers every time you feel like being an idiot," Natsu said gruffly, averting his gaze. Gray snorted, and they sat in silence for a few minutes before Natsu cleared his throat. "I can make fire that doesn't burn, you know."

"Oh?"

Natsu drew the heat out of his fire, leaving the beauty but taking the bite. He held it out to Gray, who jerked back and eyed it like it might bite him.

"Take it."

Gray shook his head, every line and shadow on his face deepening in the flickering light. "I don't–"

Natsu clicked his tongue impatiently. "I thought you trusted me? Come on, surely you can feel that there isn't any heat coming off it."

Gray stayed perfectly still, but then slowly reached his hand out and paused. It was trembling, and Natsu wondered if he was pushing too much.

Gray swallowed. "I don't know that…"

"It's okay. You don't have to do it if you really don't want to, but I think it would be good for you. I won't let it hurt you."

Gray wavered, indecision and fear and reluctance written into every line of his face. After another long pause, he stretched out his fingers again. Natsu waited patiently as his hand approached, paused, withdrew, tried again. It took several tries, but Natsu just stayed quiet and watched like a hawk.

Gray was shaking like a leaf by the time the very tip of one finger poked at the flames, but his face was creased with determination. Whatever else, he was a fighter. Natsu bit back a smile as he let the fire slide between their fingers to crackle merrily in Gray's palm instead.

Gray made a strangled, unhappy sound in the back of his throat. He held himself absolutely rigid and still, eyes wide and frightened as he stared at the dancing flames.

"See?" Natsu said brightly. "Totally safe."

Gray's frightened gaze jumped to Natsu's face. "I…"

One corner of Natsu's mouth quirked upward, and his voice gentled. "You did good."

Gray bit his lip and looked back at the fire. He slowly moved his hand from side to side and watched as the flames trailed behind it. The shadows they cast on the walls flickered and danced behind the riot of fiery oranges and yellows. Gray tilted his hand this way and that, and held up his other hand to let the flames jump ship.

"This is so weird," he mumbled.

His fear melted to unease and then to fascination as he played with the harmless flames and watched how they reacted. They jumped and danced merrily, and a bemused smile crossed his face.

"So are you," said Natsu.

Gray laughed out loud before trailing off into a quiet cough so as not to wake Happy, and the smile stayed as he let the flames crawl up his arm. His eyes sparkled as he twisted the flames about.

Natsu smiled and leaned back against the wall, eyes soft as he watched Gray experiment. He had shown Gray the dark side of his fire, and it lightened his heart to finally show him a little of its beauty as well.

* * *

And so they heal  
One step at a time  
And they win  
One battle at a time  
And they trust  
One heartbeat at a time.

They fight at the guild again  
With small  
Sparks  
Of magic.  
The fire stays  
Small  
Weak  
Beatable  
And Gray  
Fights back.

And then the  
Sparks  
Get bigger  
But it's okay because  
Gray is strong.  
And anyway  
He trusts Natsu  
And Natsu keeps  
Control.

They fight  
Together  
On jobs again  
Even if Gray still keeps a little  
Distance  
And gets uneasy if Natsu gets too  
Excited  
Fired up  
Reckless.

They don't have quite the same  
Ease  
Teamwork  
Trust  
That they once had  
And their magics don't  
Blend  
Complement  
Trust  
Each other quite like before  
But they get closer  
One step at a time  
And win  
One fight at a time.

It's a work in progress  
But so is  
Growth  
Healing  
Life.

One day Natsu notices  
A burn on Gray's finger.  
Gray only shrugs and taps his  
Box of matches.  
Natsu says to be careful  
Gray claims he was.  
And Natsu doesn't understand  
Until much later  
What Gray means when he says,  
"Maybe I needed to feel it."

They aren't perfect.  
They have  
Mistakes  
Setbacks  
Failures.  
But they  
Fight  
Recover  
Try again.

They will  
Win.

The scars go  
Deeper  
Beneath the skin  
Because something happened  
That surface healing  
Couldn't wipe away like  
Magic  
As if it didn't happen at all.

And those are the scars that make them  
Fighters.

Gray is  
**B**old  
**R**esolute  
**A**daptable  
**V**aliant  
**E**mpowered.

Natsu is  
**P**ersistent  
**R**esourceful  
**O**ptimistic  
**U**nflinching  
**D**edicated.

Gray faces his fears head on  
And Natsu is proud of what they have accomplished  
And how far they have come.

Natsu is doing something to  
Make up for his mistake  
And more than that  
To help his friend.  
Every time Gray  
Smiles  
Or overcomes a challenge  
Or takes a step forward  
Natsu feels like he has won a victory.

Every time  
A piece of Gray heals  
A piece of Natsu heals too.

Natsu's nightmares begin to  
Fade away  
And he doesn't  
Fear his magic  
And he isn't always  
Consumed by guilt.

Participating in Gray's healing is  
Healing Natsu too  
And he wonders if maybe  
Gray knew that all along  
And that's why they're doing this  
Together  
In the first place.


	5. Part 5

**Part 5**

* * *

Natsu was inhaling his lunch when Levy came bursting into the guild. Her breaths came in panting gasps as she staggered to a stop. Jet and Droy were on their feet at once, rushing over and asking if she was alright, but she waved them off and straightened up.

"The west side of Magnolia is on fire," she wheezed. "Gajeel stayed behind to help, but they need everyone they can get over there. Natsu, Juvia… Anyone who can help contain the fire and get everyone out of harm's way."

Natsu cast a longing glance at the remainder of his food, but it looked like he would be getting a free meal soon enough. Fire, huh?

"I'm coming." He stood and threw a sidelong look at Gray. "You wanna stay here, ice block?"

Gray had gone still, shoulders hunched, but now he scowled at Natsu. "Of course not. I'm not a child."

Happy and the girls exchanged a look but didn't comment. Erza quickly took charge of their group, and the team rushed out into the streets as the rest of the guild mobilized and took off.

Natsu could taste the smoke in the air, and they could all see the flames crackling and leaping towards the sky in the distance after they'd run only a few streets over. Not good. It was a big fire, and most of western Magnolia was residential.

He slid a sideways glance at Gray, who was easily keeping up despite his reluctance to approach the conflagration. His gaze was focused on the fire dancing along the skyline, his jaw tight and face set in hard lines. It could be taken as run-of-the-mill determination, but Natsu recognized it as the expression Gray wore when he was scared and didn't want to do something but would force himself to do it in order to prove something to himself.

The expression he often wore before pushing himself too hard and breaking. Natsu didn't think this was a good idea. Gray had made remarkable progress over the past few months, but this was on a whole new level and could easily backfire.

Natsu dropped back a pace and grabbed Gray's arm to slow him while Happy and the girls raced ahead. "Are you going to be okay with this?"

Gray shot a sharp look at the rest of the team, but they were too focused to notice. "Of course. This is our city, our guild, and I'm just as responsible for their protection as any of the rest of you."

"Just…be careful."

Gray waved him off with a scoff that didn't quite cover his nerves, and broke free to rejoin the rest of the team. Natsu sighed but conceded. Gray was right and would always do his best despite his scars. Natsu had to respect that.

"Natsu!" Erza barked as they ran up on the inferno and skidded to a stop. "Get rid of the fire over there. See how it's about to jump to that row of houses? We need a firebreak to stop it from spreading, and then you can work your way in to extinguish the fire from the outside in. The rest of us will work on putting out what we can and finding anyone who's trapped."

Natsu nodded, shot one last look at Gray, and rushed off to the indicated houses with Happy trailing behind. The smoke was thick and black and clogged his throat, but he squinted past the haze and reached for the flames—beautiful, deadly flames—creating it. They leapt from building to building, reaching ever higher as they consumed the wood and fuel in their path.

Natsu sucked in a deep breath and called the flames, swallowing them down. They curled through his body and twined around his own magic, and he grinned and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. There was a lot of fire to eat today.

"Hurry," Happy urged. "It's spreading really fast."

"I got this."

Natsu worked his way forward, pushing the flames back and seizing them as his own. Civilians escaped from burning buildings and ran for safety, while mages and more than a handful of brave non-mages worked tirelessly to put out the fire and get everyone out of its reach. Natsu spotted Juvia dumping water on the blaze off in the distance, and one time glimpsed flames frozen in crystalline tongues before he moved farther away from the team. That made him feel good. Gray was fighting.

It could have taken minutes or hours, but they were taming this beast. Natsu found a pocket of frightened people huddled close together in an alley between houses as the flames closed in around them, and freed them to run for safety.

"It's going well," Happy said. "If you just clean up this side right–"

"Natsu!" Lucy yelled.

Natsu's head jerked around at the sound of her voice, his battle with the flames forgotten. She sounded…desperate, even over the sounds of chaos permeating the air.

"What is it?" Happy asked.

"Lucy is calling me. Come on."

Natsu whirled about and ran back towards where he had left the others, towards the sound of Lucy's voice as she called for him again. He leaped over charred debris and kicked up clouds of ash as he dashed through the now fire-free expanse of the neighborhood.

"Natsu!" Erza, this time.

Natsu skidded around the corner, and heat blasted his face like a physical thing. The fire, though weakened, still raged along the row of houses directly facing them. Lucy and Erza stood in front of one, fear written across their faces.

"Forget it," Erza said. "We can't wait for him. I'm going in."

"You can't!" Lucy squeaked. "It's too big. You're going to get trapped inside."

"Well, it's better than nothing."

"I'm here." Worry gripped Natsu's heart as he took stock of the situation…and of who was missing. "Where's Gray?"

The girls turned to him with identical expressions of relief and worry.

"Thank goodness," Lucy sighed.

"He's in there." Erza pointed at the burning house, her face grim.

"Why would he go in there?" Natsu growled, not quite believing it. "It's hard enough to get him within twenty feet."

"There was someone trapped up on the second floor." The lines on Erza's face deepened. "I was going to go after her, but Gray said he'd do it because he could protect her with his ice. He got her out through the window and we took care of it from there, but he disappeared and hasn't come back out."

"Natsu," Lucy pleaded tearfully, "you have to get him out."

Natsu stared in horror at the burning house. Flames licked at every inch, and it creaked and groaned as the fire ate through it. Gray, who could barely stand to get within a few feet of a _small _flame, had gone in _there_?

No, no, this was not going to happen again.

Natsu charged past the girls without a second look, darting through the open doorway and its curtain of flames. He squinted against the brightness searing his retinas as the fire crackled and danced through every room and up every wall.

He ran straight for the staircase. Gray had gone to the second floor, and Natsu would start in the room he'd been seen in last. He had to pause at the top to get his bearings and determine which room corresponded to the window Erza had indicated, but then rushed through flames and over groaning floors to get at it.

"Gray!" he yelled, pitching his voice to be heard over the roaring of the flames. "Gray, where are you?"

At first, nothing but the hungry fire replied. But then, so faint that even Natsu's keen hearing almost missed it over the static, a small voice said, "Here."

Natsu lunged through the doorway, but he didn't see Gray. The flames burned hot and hungry around the open window on the opposite wall, long since finished with the curtains and now sinking their teeth into the walls with gusto. The bed and table were quickly being reduced to ash, and fire munched at the rugs thrown across the wooden floors and nibbled at the boards.

He saw fire everywhere he looked, but no Gray. He ducked around the side of an old armoire burning like a torch and finally spotted his friend backed into the corner, not visible from the doorway. The flames were creeping closer, slowly circling him in.

Gray stood frozen, eyes wide with terror and arms wrapped about himself as he huddled as far back in the corner as he could go. Every muscle was held so taut that it trembled. It was as if he'd been overwhelmed and couldn't even think to fight his way out now that the person he'd thrown everything away to save was no longer here to fight for. A fear strong enough to short-circuit the survival instincts and override the normal panic response of fight or flight might as well be stronger than life itself.

Natsu raced right across a burning rug, heedless of the heat pressing in all around, and skidded to a stop. He wrapped an arm around Gray and pulled him firmly to his chest, a barrier against the fire and the fear.

"I've got you," he said roughly. "You're gonna be okay. I'll get you out."

A hand fisted in Natsu's shirt. Gray turned his face inward, his breaths harsh and fast and panicked against Natsu's chest. Hell, Natsu knew he shouldn't have let the ice mage out of his sight. He shouldn't have assumed Gray would stay safe on the sidelines just because he was afraid.

He sucked in a deep lungful of fire, and started devouring the flames all around them to create a safe passage back out. Heat seared his throat and twined around his own magic, before gentling as he took control. He opened his mouth to pull in another breath, but Gray released him suddenly and faced the fire once more. His hands jabbed and slashed at the air, and a chilly blast howled through the room and froze the flames into icy stalagmites of brilliant yellow and orange and red.

Natsu blinked at the stunning spectacle in disbelief. "Wow…"

Gray's exhale was shaky and his entire body was still trembling like a leaf in the wind. He darted a glance at Natsu, eyes wide and dark and frightened. But even if he was still terrified out of his mind, even if he had frozen and given up before, he had fought back now.

"Pretty badass." Natsu gave him a toothy smile despite his jangling nerves. "See, you can do it. You're stronger than you think. And I'm not going to let anything happen. Come on, let's get you out of here."

Gray blinked once, twice, nodded, and inched closer. Natsu slid an arm around him again and they stumbled for the door, ducking around the dying echoes of flames trapped in their icy cages. The floor creaked and groaned dangerously under their feet, and the hissing and spitting of the fire still raging outside the room filtered through the doorway. Time to get out before something went wrong or the place came down on their heads.

Natsu sucked up lungfuls of fire and Gray froze anything that got too close, and together they fought their way through the inferno, down the stairs, and out the front door.

They staggered a few paces down the walk, and Gray collapsed against Natsu as his knees finally gave out. Natsu grunted under his weight, but supported him while he gasped and shook.

"Gray!" Lucy cried. "Are you alright?"

Happy and the girls rushed over to fuss, while Gray coughed and trembled and didn't make eye contact with anyone.

"You did it, Natsu," Happy said, plopping onto the dragon slayer's head.

"You were brave to go in there." Erza brushed at Gray's hair tenderly, ash flaking away and drifting to the ground under her fingertips. "I wasn't sure you'd be coming out here at all, much less actually running into a fire."

"I guess your experiments must have worked after all," Lucy said, pride warring with relief in her eyes. "Although you shouldn't have gone in there alone!"

Gray's head snapped up, bleary eyes sharpening back into focus. "What?"

Erza arched an eyebrow. "Surely, you didn't really think we wouldn't notice that something was going on with you two? We might not know the details, but you guys have been running around in secret playing with fire for months since last time."

Color crept across Gray's too-pale face.

Natsu's arm tightened around Gray convulsively as he gaped at their friends. "Whoa," he said, stunned. "I didn't realize you figured it out."

Happy rolled his eyes. "We aren't _that _stupid."

"Look," said Lucy. Ignoring the revelation everyone else found so riveting, she took Gray's chin in her hand and gently guided his gaze to the side. "There she is. You saved her."

A petite, blonde-haired woman huddled with a cluster of other civilians as they watched their homes burn from the relative safety of a fire-free zone several yards back. When she saw them looking, the woman smiled a little shakily and waved. Gray swallowed and pulled one hand away from Natsu's arm to give a tiny wave back.

"Things are starting to die down," Happy said. "This seems like the last real problem area, and now it's mostly cleanup."

Natsu huffed out a breath. "Right. We should help with that. Gray, you should head home and get some rest."

"What?" Gray pulled away, swaying slightly before regaining his feet. Despite his trembling, his scowl was fierce. "I can–"

"Nope, I'm cutting you off," Natsu said firmly. "I know you _can_, but you're going to keep going until you drop again. Go home."

"You can't just–"

"I can and I will. Trust me on this one. It's my job to stop you when you're pushing yourself to the breaking point. You did good today. Now get some rest and let us finish with the cleanup. Happy, go with him, will you?"

Gray looked away, nostrils flaring. "I don't need a babysitter," he said sulkily, but he was no longer protesting the order.

"No, but it's nice to have company." Natsu sobered further as his eyes traced the burns along Gray's arms. There weren't that many, they weren't nearly as bad as last time, but each one could be disastrous. "Maybe you can find Wendy along the way."

Gray shook his head and turned away. "There are people who got burned worse, and she'll be busy. I'm fine."

"But–"

"Stop mother-henning me. Come on, Happy."

Natsu sighed as Gray and Happy wove their way through the charred ruins and disappeared from view. Every burn felt like a failure to protect Gray, and he was worried that throwing him in the deep end could prove a setback to all the progress they'd made through their baby steps. But that was something to address after Gray had gotten some rest and calmed down.

"It's good to see you looking out for him," Erza said.

He looked back over with a frown. "You knew we were doing therapy and didn't say anything?"

The girls exchanged a long look before Lucy said, "You seemed to have it under control, and it wasn't like you or Gray came to _us_."

"And he has a habit of shutting down if you pry where he doesn't want you looking," Erza added with a shrug. "He went to _you_, and if it helped him work through some things and you work through some of your guilt… Well, that seemed like something you should do together, without our interference.

"Now, let's finish things up here."

Natsu shook his head in something halfway between disbelief and wonder. Their friends… Well, he knew better than to underestimate them again. But maybe he shouldn't be so surprised. Even when it felt like he was doing it alone or it felt like just him and Gray against the world, they had a whole team—a whole family—behind them every step of the way.

They spent the next few hours putting out the last of the fires and helping with the aftermath. Fires were infamous for smoldering in secret and rekindling long after everyone thought it was safe to breathe again, and Natsu wandered the entire neighborhood to check for any sign that it wasn't over. He put out any embers he found before rejoining the girls and the rest of the guild to make sure all the victims got any necessary medical attention and help them find any missing family or friends.

A small contingent of mages worked with the local authorities to make temporary housing arrangements for the displaced who had nowhere else to go, and the cleanup and rebuilding of the neighborhood would undoubtedly take weeks or months. A few houses at the edge of the disaster zone could probably be saved, but half the neighborhood had been reduced to charred debris and cinders. Many of the houses clinging stubbornly to the last vestiges of life, looming like broken, blackened skeletons on their last legs, would have to be torn down and rebuilt.

It would be a long and tiring process, one that Natsu suspected he and the guild would be involved in. But for today, he had done all he could do.

He was exhausted by the time he finally escaped. Dusk was just dusting the horizon with streaks of purple and orange as he dragged himself over to Gray's apartment. When he knocked on the door, it was Happy who answered.

Natsu's eyebrow jumped upward. "Where's Gray?"

"Resting." Happy slipped outside and shut the door behind him with a soft click. "He was pretty freaked out for a while, but he finally started calming down." He grinned smugly. "He let me cuddle with him."

Natsu snorted loudly at his friend's satisfaction. After casting one last look at the apartment's darkened windows, he conceded defeat and headed for home. He could talk to Gray later. As it was, Gray was worked up and Natsu was exhausted. Besides, the best talk was the kind that was postponed for as long as humanly possible and then downgraded to a flurry of insults and fists with maybe the lightest handful of words peppered in.

Natsu was glad of the reprieve, even if he was still a little concerned. He wouldn't mind some sleep. He flopped over onto the couch as soon as he stumbled into the house, too tired and achy to worry about rinsing the soot and smoke off his body or changing clothes or making dinner. Even just getting to his actual bed seemed too hard. The bedroom might as well be miles away.

It was really too early to sleep, but he drifted in and out of hazy, fragmented dreams anyway while Happy curled up by his chest.

He was woken some indeterminate time later by Happy poking his arm.

"Go away," he mumbled.

"Natsu, there's a fire outside."

Natsu sat up abruptly. "What?"

_Another _fire? He rushed over to the window at the back of the house. The sky had darkened to night, and he spotted a small fire twinkling a few feet outside his back door as if one of the stars had taken a tumble and landed in his yard. His anxiety faded when he stepped outside and saw that it was just a small campfire.

Gray was sitting as far away as he possibly could while still within reach of the long stick that had two fluffy marshmallows jammed on its end. His gaze slid sideways to rest on Natsu and he smoothed some of the discomfort from his face.

"What are you doing?" Natsu asked as he plodded over and sat down in the grass next to his friend. Happy dropped out of the sky to squeeze between them.

"Toasting marshmallows, obviously." Gray pulled the stick out of the fire and poked at one of the golden-brown marshmallows before pulling it off in a sticky clump and popping it into his mouth. "These things are the best."

Natsu just raised an eyebrow. In general, Gray did not intentionally go near or make fire any bigger than that of an ordinary match. Especially not when he had just faced a raging inferno mere hours earlier.

"Can I have one?" Happy asked, eyes sparkling in the firelight as he widened them as far as they could go.

"Sure." Gray pulled the other one off the skewer and handed it over, before taking two new ones from the bag propped against his knee in the grass beside him. He speared them and stuck them back into the flames.

Happy munched away cheerfully while Natsu frowned at Gray. Gray did not look over again, but kept his gaze fixed on the marshmallows in the fire. When the wind blew and sent tendrils of fire leaning towards him, he flinched.

"You don't have to prove anything," Natsu said finally.

Gray snorted. "I've never felt the need to prove anything to _you_."

"Gray, it's okay. You did fine, we all did fine. You don't have anything to prove."

Gray was quiet for a long moment, eyes glassy in the firelight. "I froze," he said. "After everything, after how far I thought I'd come, I just…_froze_. What good is that?"

Natsu sighed. "That was a little bit different than lighting a match. We've been so careful to take everything one small step at a time, and that was just…overwhelming. Anyone would've panicked."

"But you went in," Happy said. He was licking marshmallow off his paws rather than looking at Gray, but his eyes were serious. "Even though you were scared, you went in to save that girl. That's really brave."

"And you _did _start fighting your way back out once you snapped out of it," Natsu added. "It was…pretty amazing, how you did all that when usually you won't even walk near a candle. You've come really far. You're strong and brave, and you don't have to prove anything—not to anyone, not to me, not to yourself. What you've already accomplished is remarkable enough."

Gray chewed on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. Resting his free arm on his leg, he stared into the depths of the flames as if searching for an answer. Then he pulled the skewer out and slid a marshmallow off the end.

Seeing his chance, Natsu swooped in for the kill and grabbed the other marshmallow, popping it into his mouth before Gray had time to react.

"Hey!" Gray protested. "That was _mine_."

"You gave one to Happy."

"Happy can make himself look cute when he wants something. You can't."

"I resent that."

"I resent that you ate my marshmallow."

Natsu laughed, relieved that the fire hadn't taken this away. Hadn't taken themselves away. But for good measure, he sucked in a breath and swallowed down the campfire too.

"And now you also ate my fire," Gray complained.

Natsu shrugged. "You don't have to always play with fire just to prove that you can. There's more to life, more to _you_, than fear."

Gray blinked at him, taken aback, and dropped his gaze. "I…"

"Let's eat ice cream instead! I've had enough heat for today. Time to cool off."

Gray barked out a surprised laugh as Natsu grabbed him by the arm, snatched up Happy, and pulled them up. They rose in a tangle of limbs and a flurry of laughing complaints, and turned their backs on the remains of the fire, all the smoke and soot and ash.

* * *

They stand up on their feet  
And step forward  
Leaving behind the ashes of their  
Fears  
Insecurities  
Traumas.

And from these ashes  
They rise like  
Twin phoenixes  
In the night.

A little bit broken  
A little bit scarred  
But wholly victorious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be entiiiiirely honest, I wouldn't have relied on this as an ending if I knew I'd be turning it into a multichapter instead of leaving it as a one-shot. It's sort of stereotypical or expected or whatever, but I needed to wrap things up fairly quickly and really just needed a situation to show Gray both hiccuping and overcoming his fears. You know, something not perfect but still showing how far he's come. Preferably something with some kind of connection to the original incident. And there had to be some kind of catalyst to make him face what he's so afraid of. So maybe I picked the most typical route, but I'm too lazy to go back and write a whole new ending now lol
> 
> Also, tiny poetry is tiny. Sorry, there was originally none here and I felt like I needed some to match the structure of the other parts but I was too lazy to add a bunch of stuff.
> 
> Aaaand The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my free verse experimentation. A few months ago I'd just read a book written in free verse that was surprisingly good and really powerful (which is nice, because usually I don't care for them), and was ready and raring to go lol To be honest, this part was not originally written in verse—I did that when I started splitting things up. Originally there were three free verse sections to link together the four different parts and give some internal structure, but once I split things up I just made them the ending parts of the chapters and had to ad lib some stuff (and no, I'm not entirely happy about that. I like how the structure was before, but sometimes you've gotta compromise and make things work -_-). If you don't like this one in particular, just read it as sentences. Because I literally took a couple paragraphs I'd already written and added in line breaks and played with the conjunctions and stuff. The one nice thing about free verse is getting to use line breaks to put emphasis on particular words or phrases :3 The other sections were actually written as verse, so they might be better. Or worse, depending lol But it's still mostly prose, because prose is my jam. Sorry, I suck at poetry, and free verse is about the closest I ever get lol
> 
> Also, injuries don't mean a whole lot in worlds with perfect healers like this, for the most part. I was interested in exploring the idea that sometimes there's trauma that goes more than skin-deep and doesn't just magically disappear. Because you know me: I like consequences XD


End file.
